


Orphan

by lonelywalker



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-<i>Rage</i>, Martha tries to make sense of her feelings for Lionel - and for Jonathan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orphan

The last of the first times came three months before their wedding. With a cheap engagement ring on her finger, and nothing but supreme youthful confidence in her mind, there had been no thoughts of any consequences worse than a baby appearing a little earlier than polite small town society might have expected. But they had both been reluctant to wait, with niggling doubts about the embarrassment of the first time spoiling their wedding night, and the idea of marrying him with their child already stirring inside her had had more appeal than she would ever have admitted, even to herself.

It had been an evening of good, inexpensive wine, and laughter that had finally overpowered any lingering doubts or shyness. Neither of them had been anywhere close to virginity, but they _adored_ each other, and that could have been enough to make them both anxious, could have led to awkward fumbles and compliments that somehow came out as insults, could have ruined the whole thing then and there. But she remembers it now as one of the happiest nights of her life, lying there with him afterwards, even though it was his father’s barn, as unglamorous as could be, and chilly even under blankets. She could feel warm, strong arms around her, his heartbeat steady as she rested her cheek against his chest. She couldn’t have hoped for a better way for a child to be conceived, or a better last first time.

Time would prove her wrong on both counts.

***

The sun has slipped down past the horizon, the last flickers of orange on distant clouds slowly receding into darkness. Dinner has been served and eaten, plates pushed back and replaced by old jokes and stories, bittersweet memories made momentarily cheerful again through the ability to share them with friends. With family.

They’re all orphans, Martha had realized, taking her place at the table. That fateful day when a boy from a dead planet had innocently wandered into her life, could she have imagined collecting an entire house full of refugees? Lois and Oliver – three dead parents between them – are now busy making out like teenagers on the porch, pretending that no one can see them. Chloe, her mother long lost from her life, is checking her email in the barn as if something of vital global importance might have happened while they were carving the turkey.

Clark had been gathering up dishes until she’d stopped him, had packed him off to spend time with his friends and play the gracious host rather than frustrating himself doing chores at a more leisurely pace than normal. Honestly, the number of dishes, streaked with grease and gravy and bits of vegetable that are no longer remotely identifiable, is quite amazing. She hasn’t cooked for this many people in years, and these days isn’t used to doing so for any more than herself. Clark is so often grabbing sandwiches on the run, existing on coffee and cookies in Metropolis. Still, he’s grown up far past her need to lecture him. He –

“He’s quite the young man, isn’t he?”

Lionel Luthor. The richest man in Kansas, once upon a time. An orphan rumored to have murdered his own parents as a teenager. He’s denied it to her face, and she’s tried to believe him. He’s here, now, at her request – blue sweater pulled over a pale purple shirt, the sleeves of both rolled up as he surveys the detritus of the meal. “You must be very proud of him, Martha.”

Her smile is only just polite. “You know I am.” Seeing him reaching for the sink, she starts: “You don’t have to…”

“I want to,” he says, and his smile is more genuine. “Believe me, Martha. For a man in my position, there’s a certain exotic romance about washing dishes once in a while. Let me have my fun.”

It’s late in the day, and she’s spent most of the last forty-eight hours busying herself with both official business for the State Senate, and family business preparing this meal. Although all of the activity had served a purpose, she’s by now far too weary of it all to object. “Be my guest,” she says, affectionately slinging the dishcloth over his shoulder. “But if you break anything you’ll be up all night with the superglue, mark my words.”

“I am duly warned,” he says solemnly, turning on the hot water, and testing it with a finger. With little else to do, Martha hops up onto one of the stools at the edge of the counter, and watches him.

She’s undecided whether this day will go down in her memory as a day of firsts, or as a day of almosts. For months, Thanksgiving had loomed as a beacon of Jonathan’s absence. If he had been here, he probably wouldn’t have been very concerned about the holiday at all. But it had always been nice to eat together as a family, gathered around with resolutely good cheer, usually digging up some nugget from Clark’s uniquely eventful childhood to make them all laugh. This is Clark’s first Thanksgiving dinner without his father, and their first _with_ Lionel. Oliver is a new guest too, of course, but even having Star City’s most infamous playboy millionaire at the table can’t compete with the significance.

She _likes_ him. She likes him in that ridiculous way she’d sworn had only ever affected her for _one_ year in high school, to be replaced with good common sense ever after. Somehow, it had been important for Lionel to be here, beyond any of that common sense or logic, beyond the negative effect it might have on Clark. She hadn’t wanted to replace Jonathan at the table. Of course not. Not even an army of friends could do that. But she’d needed him, her rock over the last weeks and months, despite all the ulterior motives Clark thinks she’s too good-natured to see.

And he’s lost someone too, of course. He’s alone, single, mourning, even though his wedding ring has long been discarded, even though she can’t imagine that he’s possibly been very lonely over the years. But she doesn’t feel so pitiful when he’s there, in the moments when even he falters. In those moments, it’s possible to believe that, if they just manage to hold onto each other, everything will be all right.

He’d almost kissed her this morning. She’d almost kissed him. And if he had? If she had?

 _There’s something between us…_

“Lionel?”

He’s amassing a collection of shining wine glasses upside-down in the drying rack. Perhaps she’ll have to keep him. “Yes?”

She’s lost for a question. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me.”

His head is bowed slightly. Perhaps he’s examining something in his hands. “I know,” he says finally. “It meant a lot to me that you asked.”

Martha drops back down to her feet, goes to stand by his elbow, noticing that his cuffs are dark with water. “Did she… your wife… did she like Thanksgiving?”

“She did.” He pauses in his chores, tosses a half-washed fork back into the basin. “Her family always had a big party out in the country. It must have been a wonderland for her as a child. She wanted to make sure that Lex didn’t miss out on the same kind of experience, to give us both good memories of the holiday. My parents never celebrated Thanksgiving when I was a boy.”

Given her own strictly formal, practically regimented, Thanksgiving dinners as a child, Martha can hardly imagine any conditions under which anyone could possibly _miss_ such an occasion. “Never?”

Turning his back to the sink, he takes the cloth from his shoulder and wipes his hands dry as if considering his answer. “We…” He frowns, and she can detect a little internal conflict there. To lie or not to lie? And then he’s wiping down the counter, distracted. “We never had very much money. My mother wasn’t a cook. And the holiday wasn’t a meaningful one for Scottish immigrants. As I recall, it was only another day for my father to spend in bars.”

She has to wonder how many people he has ever told stories about his miserable, disadvantaged childhood. Lex? Apparently not. Had he ever told Lillian? Ever revealed to her that her husband was about as far from being the son of Scottish nobility as Clark is from editing the _Daily Planet_? “Well, it’s not as if you were missing much,” she tells him, her tone diplomatic. “Just another occasion for family squabbles most of the time. Apart from the turkey, it used to be just like any other family meal. Just the three of us, unless Gabe – Chloe’s Dad – had to work.”

 _Just the three of us._ She’s still staring at the now-empty dining table, chairs in disarray, when he touches her arm. “It meant a lot to me that you wanted me to be here,” he says softly.

He’s so _tall_ , she thinks looking up at him now. It’s awkward, this discrepancy in size, just as it had been when she’d first met Jonathan, when she’d spent hours poring over lecture notes with him, just trying to figure out the logistics of…

“Martha?”

She drops her gaze, hurries past him back into the fray of dirty dishes. So many things to tidy up before she turns in for the night. She could leave it for the next morning, of course, but food will spoil, and dishes will crust over, and… What she wouldn’t give for superspeed, except she’s sure that Clark will be caught up in any one of a hundred other things tonight and completely forget about even the _concept_ of housework.

“I can do it,” Lionel is protesting, and she waves him away with a hand.

“I know how long the drive back to Metropolis is – I hope you haven’t left your driver out there in the car all night, have you? – and you’re far too busy to be kept in my kitchen all evening.” She gives him a small smile, brandishing a carving knife, and forcing him to move out of the way as she assaults what remains of the mess.

If Lionel hadn’t been aware of how out of place he is in the Kent family kitchen, now is obviously the time for a long-awaited realization. “I drove here myself,” he says, although she’s more or less dismissed him already. “And I’m yours for as long as you want me.” He’s already staring at some high shelf by the time she turns to look at him curiously. “Some time away from stocks and shares and conference calls will do me good.”

And, oh, that smile. More mischievous than charming, and never, not in a million years, as innocently adorable as that seen on a plaid-clad farmboy at Metropolis University so many years ago. But still…

He'd stood out in her mind for so long as a fully-formed, solid concept – the CEO of Luthorcorp, perpetually sewn into a suit, utterly divorced from the daily realities of life on a farm, or even at one of his own corporation's fertilizer plants. She had never had cause to more intimately analyze that idea of him, to realize that it was as much a meaningless stereotype as the way others might think of her.

How much is she, really, the typical Kansas farmer's wife? She hadn't been that when she'd moved here from Metropolis, ditching her sophisticated upbringing, lifestyle, and friends on the way. She certainly hadn't been that the day she and Jonathan had found an alien child in a meteor-hit cornfield and decided to adopt him as their own. And she isn't that now, her husband dead, Clark increasingly independent, her time occupied by speeches and political lobbyists rather than gardening and apple pie.

But the details, over the years, have become far more vivid. She had seen him vulnerable when he was blinded in the wake of tornadoes – something she suspects he's never allowed anyone else to even guess at, and least of all Lex. She had seen him stroke fingertips over old photographs he could never again hope to see, play his beautiful piano with a fiercely restrained passion… And lately, those broad strokes of his personality have become even finer: the way he doesn't bite his tongue anymore when she asks him questions, the way his eyes light up whenever she comes into the room.

Those eyes…

She crams another dish into the sink, wipes off her hands, and turns her back on the lot as if absolving herself from even thinking about it for the rest of the evening, just as Lois opens the kitchen door.

"Hi Mrs. Kent. Ollie's giving me a ride back to Metropolis…" She barely glances at Lionel, instead catching Martha up in a hug that Martha suspects is much less about affection than it is about trying to skip over the fact that she's going home with Oliver Queen. Again. "That was an _amazing_ meal. Thanks so much for the invite."

And now she remembers that Lionel is in the room. However much he's trying to be unobtrusive, there's only so much an infamous billionaire can do not to be noticed. Lois looks between them, a hint of a warning on her lips, and for a moment Martha thinks that she's about to give them both The Talk, including pointing out where Clark keeps his condoms. But no. After all, there's nothing suspicious going on. They're simply two adults having a polite after-dinner conversation. It's not as if he'd had her up against the counter, his slim hips moving against hers, her fingers tangled in his hair…

Lois is, for once, lost for words. "Well. Later!" And, with a thunk of the door, she's gone. A few moments later, an engine starts, and there's the sound of Oliver's Jaguar making its way very carefully down the muddy Kent driveway.

Lionel's eyes meet hers. "I… perhaps I should take my leave as well. I wouldn't want to impose."

In his own way, she suspects that he's asking her to let him stay, and it shouldn't be a difficult decision. It's early enough in the evening yet, and they've frequently stayed up later, editing and re-editing speeches until the words have no meaning, almost falling asleep on the couch watching old movies. She can count on one hand the number of times she's actually seen him relax, though, slipping off his tie, undoing his collar, and settling down for hours at a time to smile at Audrey Hepburn.

And how many times had he ended up with his arm around her, as she snuggled next to him in search of warmth, affectionately smacked his shoulder after he made a typically dry comment? She does it because she misses Jonathan, of course, and Clark's so rarely willing to spend time with his boring old mother when he could be sipping cappuccinos with Lana or tearing around the city after gangs and terrorists and alien invaders. It's not that she wants _Lionel_ so much, it's just that he's there, and he's warm, and he wants her. That must be it.

"You're not imposing, Lionel," she says softly, as they'd both known she would. "And I think you're right about life on the farm being good for you. We don't even get good cellphone reception out here."

"I left mine in the car," he tells her, his voice low, and really she expects him to reach out and touch her arm now, invading her space, stroking her hair… but he stays exactly where he is, hands bunched in his pockets, just looking at her.

She had chosen to take control earlier in the day, to pursue him to Metropolis, brush aside his carefully-planned apologies and _make_ him come to Thanksgiving dinner despite all of his protestations. She had been the one to finally voice the attraction that's existed between them for years. _What it is, I don't think either one of us knows…_ She had told him that she wasn't ready, isn't ready, to explore their relationship further, is happy to have him as a friend, as a companion by her side helping her with her career, going as her date to formal functions, holding her when she needs simple comfort.

He had been ready to take a bullet for her once. Clark may not trust him, and it's too soon, far too soon after Jonathan's death to even think of… But, oh god, she's thinking of it. And, worse, to act on it – now, ever – she would have to take the initiative. He never will now, not after today, not after she had made the situation absolutely clear in his office this afternoon. It would have been so much easier if he had just kissed her. Then, kissing him back wouldn't have been such an agony of indecision. It wouldn't have been her fault, her choice. Now, it has to be.

She turns and walks into the living room, which is blissfully tidy, sinking onto the couch. "I think Clark and Chloe must be busy talking in the barn. Solving the problems of the world, probably."

“I’m sure, were I blessed with the gifts Clark has, I would be tempted to eavesdrop,” he says, still standing.

“Then I’m thankful you weren’t, and aren’t,” she tells him with deliberate carelessness. Although she has reasonably good faith in Clark’s ability to control his gifts, and in his good nature, she and Jonathan had always had niggling worries about making love while Clark was anywhere in the vicinity. They had got over it, of course – sheer biological imperative had taken care of that – but now Clark is hardly a blushing teen trying to avoid walking in on his parents. He’s a still-grieving young man trying to protect his mother from a man he still views as… if not evil, then certainly untrustworthy.

Martha turns to him and smiles. “Sit down, Lionel. You’re here more often than Clark is most of the time. You don’t need to hover.”

After seemingly much deliberation, he sits down next to her on the couch, far enough apart that they couldn’t touch accidentally, that no one could stumble upon them and think that they were any more than friends having a casual after-dinner conversation.

“You don’t know how _thankful_ I am for having you in my life, Martha. For being a part of your life. And Clark’s.”

Her smile is a little rueful, but she reaches out for his hand, takes it between her own, uncurling his fingers. “Clark didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“Neither did I,” he admits. “Do you know, Martha, how… bizarre and _frightening_ it is to have your mind changed? To have a voice in your head… To wake up one morning and be a different person?”

 _I was possessed once_ , she thinks of pointing out, but perhaps that isn’t comparable to his experience. “I don’t think you’re a different person, Lionel. I think that you’ve changed, yes. But everything I see in you now, everything that says that you’re a good man, is just what I saw in you years ago when I was your assistant.”

“Oh, not the watch and all those attempts to seduce me,” she continues. “But the times we’d talk, and I knew that you hadn’t talked to anyone like that in years. The way you spoke about your wife…”

Her voice drifts off as she looks over at him, his hand still held between hers. The specters of dead lovers seem to haunt them yet. “How long did you wear your ring after Lillian died?”

“I was never a good husband, Martha.”

If it’s a warning, she’s not in the mood to heed it, rubbing her thumb over her own ring, more than twenty-five years old, as much a part of her as anything else now. “I always have the sense of needing to move on,” she says. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Once the funeral has been and gone… We’re supposed to carry on with our lives.”

“You have been. You’ve been a wonderful boon to the state senate.”

“I… Thank you. But we both know that’s something different. That isn’t _replacing_ him. Falling in love again… even just having sex again.”

There’s a pause that’s more than silence, and she wonders if she’s said too much, been far too intimate with a man who, only a short time ago, was barely her friend. “I don’t think that you ever _just_ do anything, Martha.” He licks dry lips, frowns at the fire stirring in the grate. “When Lillian died, I thought much the same thing. It hurt horribly. I missed her every minute. But I knew that at some point things would get better. Other things would fill up my life. There would be someone else eventually. And, if that was all going to happen _eventually_ , why not now? What difference did waiting months, years make except wasting time and making myself miserable?”

“I took off my ring after the funeral. I sent Lex back to school. I had meetings lined up for the rest of the week… I thought that it was for the best to throw ourselves in at the deep end, to show ourselves that we could cope. I firmly believed that weathering the storm would make us stronger. Throughout my life, I’ve dealt with extraordinarily adverse circumstances, but I have never felt the way Lillian’s death made me feel. I took off my ring and took a beautiful young woman to bed. It… it wouldn’t have meant a thing to me when Lilly was alive. I was never a good husband.”

She should agree. Had Jonathan ever cheated on her, no matter how much she loved him, she has no doubt that she would have thrown him out of his own farm, would have resolved never to let him touch her - _look_ at her again. But she can hardly condemn a man for mistakes he already regrets. “I think…” she starts, but the words come out as barely a whisper. “I think that you’re right. But I also think that you loved her very, very much, and that you would do things differently if you had the chance.”

He’s looking at his hand in hers, and smiles a little. “In the last few years, she was always threatening to divorce me. I never took it seriously. She was… she had terrible, dark days, especially after Julian died, but on other days she was exactly the woman I married, the woman who loved me and Alexander more than anything in the world. Losing her terrified me. But now I wish we’d had bigger fights. I _wish_ there had been a long, painful legal battle. I wish she’d taken half my fortune, only let me see the boys every second weekend. I wish that I could still call her, see her, even just for her to tell me where to go. I wish that we still hated each other, because even that would be better than this.”

Another smile, and then he looks up, as if startled by the fact that they’re both still sitting there as the darkness grows ever thicker outside the window. “I’m sorry. I should…”

“I’ve been thinking of kissing you,” she breaks in, determined not to look at his eyes, not to think of Clark listening in.

That stops him mid-movement, puzzlement and not a little hope on his face as he settles back down onto the couch, half-turned to face her. His eyes are curious, as if trying to determine the secret to a magic trick, the lie in her voice. After all, if she had wanted to kiss him, why not do it? Why not edge closer to him on this warm, comfortable couch in an empty house, tug on his fine hair, and touch her lips to his? She doubts that Lionel is even capable of understanding such hesitation, such self-conscious uncertainty.

“I… _understand_ why you want to wait,” he says, haltingly. “I know how devastating it can be to lose someone you care about… someone you love. And I care about you very deeply, Martha. I know that neither of us want to be… want this to be a… throwaway romance. And I doubt that Clark…”

“Clark is never going to approve of anyone who isn’t his father,” Martha tells him, looking into his eyes for the first time since they had sat down. “But he’s an adult now. He’s had his fair share… _More_ than his fair share of romantic troubles. It will take him a long time to trust you, Lionel, but… I think he knows how much you care for me, have always cared for me. You were willing to give your life for me, and you’ve kept Clark’s secret. Honestly, I can’t imagine ever being with someone who didn’t know… Jonathan was always such a rock for me when I just didn’t know how to cope with Clark’s abilities, or with Jor-El’s interference in our lives. I need someone who understands and, unless I want to start dating men seriously out of my age range…”

“I’m your last resort?” he asks, but the words are accompanied by a wry smile, and then a pause. “Martha, do you want me to kiss you?”

And she must say yes, or nod, or perhaps he doesn’t even wait for a response, because he _does_ kiss her, fingers light against her cheek, his beard tickling her skin, his breath tasting of nothing she can take the time to pinpoint because, god, he’s kissing her, which means she has to decide, finally decide, whether she will kiss him back. She shouldn’t, not like this, not with Jonathan’s ring on her finger, in his family home, with their son liable to walk in at any moment. She shouldn’t, so she doesn’t, just leans her head against his shoulder, feeling the hated tears come once more.

He’s not as solid as Jonathan once was – not as physically strong, not as dependable – but he holds her now, even though he doesn’t smell the same, even though there’s no reassuring roughness in work-worn clothes. He’s there, as he has been since the funeral, ready to catch her when she needed to be caught, ready to bear all of the burdens of knowing Clark’s secret. He’s there for her even when Clark isn’t, when no one else is.

She doesn’t trust him. Shouldn’t trust him. Clark is everything to her, her only child, her only family – the very center of her universe. But as she becomes ever more peripheral in the world of a young man, she, too, needs something to hold onto.

“You know…” She wipes away tears carelessly with the back of her hand, as if refusing to give them any consideration. “This is going to happen. We both know that. We’re adults. C… consenting adults.”

“Martha…”

“No, I…” She can be calm when she needs to be, her fingers cool on his. “I _do_ want this. And it seems… If it’s going to happen in a year, a month, a week… All I’ll think about is all the time I _wasted_ being a, a mess.”

His fingers curl into hers – a hug of fingertips. “You’re not a mess, Martha.” His voice is barely louder than a whisper. “It takes time. It’s… so much more than taking off a ring, or… being with someone new.”

“Then what is it?” she asks, her words hushed, as though she genuinely believes that he could have the secret to ending her crippling grief.

Lionel looks down and away, but just as her hopes of a resolution are crushed, he kisses her again, just a touch of skin on skin, a kiss of friendship more than anything. “It’s healing,” he tells her. “And it’s learning to live with the scars.”

There’s a long, long moment of silence between them during which she half thinks – half _hopes_ Clark and Chloe will come crashing in through the kitchen door, shocked to see them like this, shocked enough to spark an argument that would hash out all of the blurred, confused issues in her head, breaking them into clear, harsh definition. But there’s no sound from the door, no startled exclamation.

Martha smiles slightly, more at herself than anything. “Would you…” A deep breath, as something in her returns to normal. “Would you stay here tonight? On the couch, I mean. It’s too cold to ask Clark to sleep in the barn, and I don’t think you’d like his room much anyway…”

She’s babbling, without thinking to give him a word of explanation about _why_ she might possibly want him to spend the night on the Kent family couch, except as some kind of perverted endurance exercise. But he’s kind enough not to ask. “I would be honored,” he says, as formally as if she were a foreign head of state.

“Great. Good.” Then, lost for an appropriate course of action, she hugs him abruptly and springs to her feet. “I’ll get you pillows and blankets. I think we have an extra toothbrush around here somewhere…”

She’s halfway up the stairs, moving in the direction of the storage closet, when it occurs to her that, far from taking a lover this evening, she only seems to have adopted yet another orphan.

***

 _The hardest thing in life is losing the people you love, but you'd learn to move on -- we all do._

Since Jonathan's death, Martha has learned to appreciate the weariness that accompanies the life of a middle-aged woman coping with the twin jobs of representing her county in the State Senate and raising her son. Not being able to keep her eyes open stops her from dwelling too much on the wedding photograph by the bed, on cold sheets, on the empty space beside her that should hold a warm, masculine body smelling faintly of hard-earned sweat. Thanksgiving night should bring some longed-for solace after weeks of hard work and today's efforts, both in the kitchen and entertaining their guests. Instead, she lies with eyes open in the darkness, as awake as she has been all day.

Chloe had finally headed home, still all enviable smiles as she bid the three of them goodnight. Perhaps she had harbored just as many doubts about Lionel staying the night as Clark had, but she'd said nothing, while Clark had pulled faces and set about washing the rest of the dishes at normal speed (which gave him more of an opportunity to make his presence felt, clattering pans together as much as possible). But Lionel had only hugged her goodnight, left with the couch to himself once he convinced a reluctant Shelby to shift onto the rug. After she had gone upstairs, Martha had half expected to hear an argument, doors slamming, Lionel leaving. But there had been nothing until there had been careful footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of Clark's door creaking closed.

She closes her eyes, and waits for sleep.

It doesn't feel as if she ever drifts off, but when she next opens her eyes, it's approaching two, even if she feels just as alert as she had before. She reaches over, flattens her palm against the sheet on the other side of the bed. It's _her_ bed, now. Really she should sleep like Clark does, limbs everywhere, appropriating the entire space…

She wonders if Lionel is awake.

What would she feel like, now, had she taken him by the hand and led him up those old farmhouse stairs to this room, had she let him undress her, make love to her in her marriage bed? Would she hate herself for having the wet stickiness of him spilled between her legs, the smell of him on her body, the touch of him so near?

She craves warmth more than anything, even though Lionel may be nothing but cool muscle in bed, may hate affection. But he's been warm the few times he's hugged her, big and strong and utterly solid, just as Jonathan had been. She wants him. She wants to turn and see him now, that long lithe body and mass of hair beside her in bed. She wants him to hold her, kiss her, assuage all of her guilt and fear and despair with a word. She knows he can just as well as she knows that it's foolish to even think so.

He's sitting up on the couch when she ventures downstairs. His shirt and sweater folded on the table, she can see the outlines of biceps, of muscular shoulders standing out from his undershirt. He's talking in soft tones, petting an insomniac Shelby, who must be happy to have some company downstairs in the middle of the night.

"Did he wake you?" Martha asks, ashamed of her simple, resolutely unsexy nightdress the instant he turns to see her.

Lionel smiles. "Did we wake _you_?" Shelby, overjoyed to have _two_ human friends coming to play now, pants happily.

"No… If I could sleep through the night when Clark was younger, I could probably sleep through hurricanes." She makes her way forward, ostensibly to pat Shelby, although the movement also brings her closer to him. "I think I'm too used to only getting four, five hours. Jonathan always got up so early, and then the Talon kept me up past closing, and now…" She raises her eyes to meet his. "I'm not made for the easy life."

She wishes he would say something crude, something objectionable so she could righteously scream at him, wake up Clark and get this temptation out of her house. But there's only that sweet, sweet smile, with none of duplicity she's come to expect in his expression.

The thought comes to her that this _is_ her house, and her couch, which has inexplicably lasted through tornadoes and meteor showers, through Kryptonian battles and the Kent men's over-enthusiasm while watching football games on the TV. How much of Jonathan's popcorn still lingers in crevices the vacuum cleaner can't quite reach?

She sits down. "I suppose this is the last chance for a good night's sleep before Christmas… Do you celebrate?"

There's a trace of a frown on his face as he concentrates on Shelby. "I haven't in the past… But it seems as though you're rehabilitating me."

She lays her hand on his bare arm. "Consider it a standing invitation."

"Or you'll come and drag me away from my spreadsheets and conference calls?" His grin only grows wider. "I'd be happy to."

"Come to bed," she says suddenly, as if he's Jonathan, consigning himself to the couch after being out drinking too late, or stewing in his own conscience over Clark's future or the farm's financial troubles. She had always been an angel in the night, liberating him from stress, soothing his mind and body.

Lionel takes his hand from Shelby, who looks between them, hopeful for treats. "Martha, I don't…" He swallows, and her heart sinks. She's misinterpreted everything. Made a fool of herself… But she remembers the taste of his mouth on hers, the feel of his arms around her, and knows it was hardly a mirage. "I want this," he tells her, his voice calm and low as his hand covers hers. "But I think tonight would be a mistake. It would be difficult for Clark, and it would be difficult for you."

"It's _always_ going to be difficult." Damn it. Why does he, of all people, have to be the rational, restrained one?

His thumb rubs over the polished gold of her wedding ring. "Yes… But there'll be a right time for us, I promise."

A right time when she can come to him in that tower of his, or ask him to come here, her mind free of obligations, her ring put safely away and kept safe with all her good memories. It almost seems possible.

His free hand touches her cheek, and he kisses her again, softly, as if they could almost be family. They've used the same toothpaste, she thinks, before smiling at herself, then at him.

"You're cold," he says, just as she had been about to say something else, any words to fill up the silence. Shelby, thoroughly disgusted by their lack of attention to him, pads off in a huff towards the kitchen in search of cracker crumbs. "May I recommend this couch to you? I know it doesn't seem particularly luxurious, but it's comfortable, and there's room enough for two… and possibly a dog."

He _has_ to be joking. "Lionel, I haven't slept on a couch since…" _Since I was dying of an alien plague._ "…college," she finishes lamely, narrowing her eyes. "Are you serious?"

One look at him tells her more than she needs to know. "Come here," he says, his words barely audible, even in the silence of the room. And she does, clinging to him tightly, unaware until now how much she _needed_ this, this warm body to hold onto, the steady heartbeat in his chest. There are scars underneath his shirt, she knows, but he's whole. He'll keep her safe.

She goes to sleep hugging his arm, her back firmly pressed to his chest, feeling every breath.

Hours later, there is sunlight on her face when she wakes, her son banging his way around the kitchen in a typically Kent display of passive aggression, and Lionel…

She twists around in his arms and kisses him good morning.


End file.
